A court in Ecuador has fined US oil giant Chevron a reported $8bn (£5bn) for polluting a large part of the country's Amazon region. The oil firm Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, was accused of dumping billions of gallons of toxic materials into unlined pits and Amazon rivers.
Campaigners say crops were damaged and farm animals killed, and that local cancer rates increased. Condemning the ruling as fraudulent, Chevron said it would appeal. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadoreans, in a case which dragged on for nearly two decades.
Chevron fined for Amazon pollution by Ecuador court
U.S. firm with poor ratings hired for more Afghan work
A U.S. contractor who has continued to receive government contracts despite criticism of its work in Afghanistan was given low ratings for its performance on two more high-profile projects in the war-torn country.
McClatchy has learned that the U.S. government criticized Black & Veatch for its poor oversight and delays of a Kabul power plant project and for a study of the viability of developing a natural gas field in the Sheberghan region in northern Afghanistan.
Energy drinks potentially dangerous for kids, study reports
Parents might start hearing more about Red Bull during pediatrician visits. Researchers at the University of Miami have reviewed the literature on energy drinks -- caffeinated beverages such as Red Bull, which sometimes also contain herbal supplements -- and their effects on children.
It's no great surprise that they found that the products, many of which have three times the caffeine of a cola and some of which have five times more, might be quite harmful to kids. Their results were released by the journal Pediatrics on Monday.
Gulf oil wells 10 miles from Deepwater Horizon site leaking since 2004
While the Deepwater Horizon well has been capped since July, another group of wells about 10 miles away has been leaking oil into the Gulf since 2004, according to federal records.
Citing litigation, federal officials refused last week to answer a series of questions about the ongoing leaks, including how many wells are involved, how much oil has escaped into the Gulf and whether any fines have been issued to Taylor Energy Co, LLC, the company that owns the wells.
The Problem With Transnationals And What To Do About It
New York’s Public Advocate, Bill de Blasio, recently released a very important study about Wal-Mart’s effects on local communities. It represents a major step forward in the understanding of the effects of Big Business.
The main conclusions are shocking, to the point, and make clear what damage Wal-Mart actually managed to do to the American economy. The fundamental conclusions are these:
Was released 'Jihadist' a US informant?
An American jihadist who set up the terrorist training camp where the leader of the 2005 London suicide bombers learned how to manufacture explosives, has been quietly released after serving only four and a half years of a possible 70-year sentence, a Guardian investigation has learned.
The unreported sentencing of Mohammed Junaid Babar to "time served" because of what a New York judge described as "exceptional co-operation" that began even before his arrest has raised questions over whether Babar was a US informer at the time he was helping to train the ringleader of the 7 July tube and bus bombings.
For Some Troops, Powerful Drug Cocktails Have Deadly Results
After a decade of treating thousands of wounded troops, the military’s medical system is awash in prescription drugs — and the results have sometimes been deadly.
By some estimates, well over 300,000 troops have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan with P.T.S.D., depression, traumatic brain injury or some combination of those. The Pentagon has looked to pharmacology to treat those complex problems, following the lead of civilian medicine. As a result, psychiatric drugs have been used more widely across the military than in any previous war.
Leaked e-mails embarrass German far-right party
The leak of thousands of confidential e-mails from members of Germany's far-right National Democratic Party shows the group is soaked in racist and neo-Nazi ideology.
One example of the prevalence of neo-Nazi ideology among party members was revealed in their use of the code "88" - popular among neo-Nazis as an abbreviation of the Nazi-era slogan "Heil Hitler." "H" is the eighth letter of the alphabet and "88" is taken to stand for "HH."
Cairo's 50,000 street children were abused by this regime: Robert Fisk
The cops shot 16-year-old Mariam in the back on 28 January, a live round fired from the roof of the Saida Zeinab police station in the slums of Cairo's old city at the height of the government violence aimed at quelling the revolution, a pot shot of contempt by Mubarak's forces for the homeless street children of Egypt.
She had gone to the police with up to a hundred other beggar boys and girls to demand the release of her friend, 16-year-old Ismail Yassin, who had already been dragged inside the station. Some of the kids outside were only nine years old. Maybe that's why the first policeman on the roof fired warning bullets into the air.
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